


lone and level sands stretch far away

by queerwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Mummy (1999)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, The Mummy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 21:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4761245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerwatson/pseuds/queerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the 1999 film The Mummy. John Watson served with her regiment in a battle at the supposedly mythical city of Hamunaptra, barely escaping it alive. Now she’s washed up in Cairo, with no money and no way out of the prison she got herself put in for getting into a nasty bar fight. Enter Sherlock Holmes, a historian of sorts whose sister raided the gambling den and pub John had been frequenting and confiscated something John had taken from Hamunaptra. The Holmes sisters arrive unexpectedly to get John out of prison under the agreement that she’ll take Sherlock to Hamunaptra, and presumably whatever secrets lie there. From there, though, things get a lot more complicated - running into another expedition led by a bastard of a man from her regiment followed by Sherlock accidentally raising the dead and nearly causing what feels like the end of the world sort of complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lone and level sands stretch far away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 Femlock Big Bang. Lovely art is by othaddeus on tumblr. Title from Shelley's Ozymandias.
> 
> I have to say that writing this fic has been a short but very exhausting ride. Thank you to everyone who helped me get it done, either just by twitter-based support or by actually reading over bits of it for me. It's officially the longest thing I've ever written and I'm very excited to (finally!) share it.

The grit of sand and the unpleasant taste it left between her teeth had gotten far too familiar for John. First there was Hamunaptra, then the wandering through the desert, then all of the ridiculous things she’d gotten into to find her way to this cell. It was the sort of shit that could have made Harry proud - not that she really prided herself on that. Even she had trouble tracing the exact path at this point - and now it didn’t much matter. She was on her way to the gallows, probably, not a penny or a possession to her name.

Parts of the path that she could remember weren’t exactly lovely. The battle at Hamunaptra - a city that she’d been told time and again wasn’t real, rising up out of the sand in front of her and then getting nearly repainted with blood. Getting left to die by the bloke who was supposed to be covering her - Murray running off towards the horizon while she laid there, shot. Finally managing to stitch herself up, heading into the desert and only just managing to get to help before she passed out.

That was when she had ended up stranded back in Cairo, with no money, no way out, no way to be a surgeon again with the way her hands would shake sometimes in the morning, or the way she could barely sleep, barely eat. She’d looked like an awful mess when she’d first started stumbling her way through town, but eventually she got a bit more settled - got a place to sleep, started to get a reputation for being a decent doctor, had people coming to her for help. But the nightmares hadn’t gone, and it was still so hot and sandy and so bloody boring being stuck in somewhere she’d never really meant to be. Then she’d found a gambling den and found that drinking stilled the intermittent tremor and made her forget the limp - at least for a little while. She’d always promised herself she wouldn’t follow in those particular Watson family footsteps, but it was easier to slide down that trap than she ever would have thought.

What had gotten her into the prison where she now sat was a bar fight. Sort of a surprise since the government raid on her favorite gambling den hadn’t gotten her into any trouble at all - some busty brunette who wouldn’t tell John her name (supposedly working for the severe-looking red-headed woman who’d stood at the door) had only taken away some relic John had grabbed in Hamunaptra and accidentally kept, confiscated a few other things, and left again. However, when she’d gotten into a fist fight and broken a bloke’s arm, nose, and ribs because she’d caught him punching the woman he was with, apparently that was prison-worthy.

Well. Maybe. Fair enough. But he’d deserved it. And she was only stuck because he’d happened to be wealthy enough that he wanted to press charges.

John had lost track, officially, of how long she’d been in her cell at this point. For a while she’d tried to count days, but she spent a lot of time asleep, and it felt like it was always day, so she kept losing track. It was really only a more claustrophobic version of being with her desert regiment - more heat, more sand, more shit food and a shit place to sleep. Getting out seemed hopeless.

Except that just after she’d declared it hopeless, she got visitors. The guards dragged her out of her cell and out into a larger one in the courtyard, and suddenly, in the sunlight, she became overaware of how filthy she was. Every part of her was covered in a layer of sand and dirt. Her hair was too long, and a tangled mess on top of that. She felt absolutely disgusting - and then she looked up at her visitor, and the difference only felt even clearer.

The woman on the other side of the bars was tall, pale, and gorgeous. She had dark, curly hair that was tied up in a sort of messy bun, but otherwise she looked so clean and neat that it truly did make John feel even filthier.

Licking over her own dry lips, John sat up as much as possible and lifted her head, only to catch a disgusted glance that the beautiful dark-haired woman shot at the other person who was with her. Well. So much for that. Narrowing her eyes, she finally noticed the other woman who was there, and found it was the severe-looking red-headed woman who’d been behind that raid at the gambling den.

“What are you doing here?” John asked in a rough voice.

The red-headed woman looked away with her nose up, and John sighed, turning her gaze to the darker-haired one, who deigned to answer her.

“My sister came into possession of this... item of yours. The puzzle box, if that’s what it’s meant to be - it was hardly a puzzle to open, though. I came with the intention of getting some information from you about it, but from the looks of it, it’s more than likely that you stole it from someone while you were in the army-”

John scoffed and shook her head, cutting the other woman off. “I don’t know how you know I was in the army when it happened, but I’ll have you know that technically speaking it was an accident that I took it with me at all. I was a bit distracted. There wasn’t actually anyone to steal it from, everyone else was busy running for their lives or being dead. When I took that, the city was practically empty.”

“The city? What city?”

Finally, something she could have over these ridiculously well-off women. For no reason she could explain, she could feel a little piece of herself coming back. John smirked. “Hamunaptra. City of the dead. I was there, with my regiment, that’s where I got it. I know that’s what you really came to ask, so, yeah, congratulations. I’ve been to Hamunaptra.”

“Hamunaptra doesn’t exist.” It sounded like an automatic response - there was no emotion or heat behind it, just a push to get John to say more. To prove it.

John grinned, and chuckled. “If you really thought that, I don’t think you’d be here. If you opened that puzzle box, I think you’re smart enough to figure out it really did come from Hamunaptra.”

It was only the very slightest hint of a flush that appeared on the other woman’s cheeks, but it made John raise an eyebrow.

“It hardly took that much intelligence. The map inside the box was clearly labeled.” It was the first thing the red-haired woman had bothered to say, and John spared a glance at her, looking between the two of them enough to note that this was a typical sibling jab between them, and not anything overtly malicious.

“Either way. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think Hamunaptra was real. But if there’s a map, why would you come around asking for me?”

“The map is... damaged.” The red-haired woman spoke, and she sounded slightly pained. John glanced between the two of them again. There were questions to be answered there, but there were bigger worries at the front of John’s mind, too.

Clearing her throat, she looked to the one with dark hair, motioned her closer through the bars. “You really want me to tell you how to get to Hamunaptra?”

With her sister having looked away again, it seemed like she genuinely had the woman’s attention. John got an eager nod in response, and on the spur of the moment, and because she knew she didn’t have much time left for this little visit anyways, she leaned up, grabbed the woman’s top, and kissed her through the bars - a short, desperate kiss. “Then fucking get me out of here,” she hissed out - and then the guards were dragging her away roughly, smacking her sharply and having no regard for anything she happened to hit on the way back to her cell.

Her last glance at the woman’s face revealed a dark pink blush all along her prominent cheekbones - really too gorgeous to be allowed. It was a nice last visit, if it was the last one she ever got.

To her surprise, though, she woke up in the morning to a rough shake and a yank - the guards pulling her from her cell again. For a moment she wondered if it was just another visit, if there was something else going on, but as they removed her shackles, it got clearer and clearer that those sisters had worked some sort of magic.

One of them was still potentially some sort of government official, after all. Probably had some sort of pull for getting people out of prison.

As she left the building, John was met with absolutely no one to help her at all. It shouldn’t have surprised her that neither of the sisters was there to see her released, but for some reason she was still a little disappointed. She only had the clothes on her back - which weren’t even hers, of course. They were loose and ill-fitting, things they’d thrown at her back at the prison and barely given her the time to put on. She also wasn’t sure she had a place to go, but she decided to try going back to her old flat. It had been a shit place to stay, but it would at least give her somewhere to go. In a turn that was totally unsurprising, her landlady told her that she’d sold all her things, and the flat was taken.

The landlady did decide John could have a room for the night, though, so John took her up on the offer and settled in. She could wash her face at least, and sleep on something softer than a floor for the first time in ages. She fell asleep almost instantly after laying down.

When she woke it was because she heard someone in the room. She suspected it was the landlady - still, John was cautious when she looked around, and instead found the stern-looking redhead of the two sisters standing over her. It was startling to say the least.

“Christ, give a girl a warning, won’t you?”

A smirk appeared on the other woman’s face. John had a strong desire to punch it off, but she was well aware of the fact that she owed the woman her life.

“Dr. Watson. It’s time we had a chat.”

Sitting up, still blinking the sleep from her eyes, John tried to look more put together than she felt. She was still a mess, really. “Who are you, then? If we’re gonna have a chat you could at least do me the favor of finally telling me your name.”

She watched as the woman sat in a chair by the bed. “My name is Mycroft Holmes. My sister, whom you met, is named Sherlock. Do you need any more basic details, or can we get on with what’s important?”

“I have loads of questions, actually, but I’m fairly sure you’re not gonna answer them. So sure. What’s important?”

Mycroft folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head. To anyone else, she would have been properly intimidating. “I got you out of that jail because after our short meeting, I did some research. I believe you have been to Hamunaptra, and I believe that my sister will finally stop wasting all her time researching the city if you can take her there. I’ve arranged a trip. The two of you will be leaving tomorrow on a steamer from the dock in Cairo that I believe you’re very familiar with - it’s rather close to where we first crossed paths.”

John felt her jaw clench, and she narrowed her eyes. It was the first mention Mycroft had made of their past run-in, and it was obviously intended as some sort of vague threat. ‘I found you there and I can put you back’ sort of thing. John didn’t take kindly to being threatened. “I know the dock, yeah. Name of the boat?”

“The Aurora.”

Nodding, John licked her lips and took a moment to process. Then she gave Mycroft a look. “You’re not coming?”

The rest of John’s question didn’t need to be said out loud. The implication had laid with Mycroft planning not to come in the first place - that meant she trusted John, with her sister, with going where she said she would, all of it.

Mycroft shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. Boat travel doesn’t particularly suit me. I’d much rather operate from Cairo. I believe I can fully trust that you’ll be... aware of the consequences of what would happen if you forget the way to Hamunaptra, or attempt to make any more advances towards my sister.”

Most of what Mycroft said was to be expected, but the last bit threw John completely, and she was left staring wide-eyed at her visitor. “Sorry, advances?”

“The kiss you gave my sister was her first. I’m hoping your act of desperation will be a standalone event. Yes?”

John blushed and ducked her head. It was the only thing Mycroft had said that had actually managed to make her feel ashamed. She’d known, really, that she shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but she had been desperate, and scared, and exhausted. Still. That was no excuse. After a moment, John nodded. “Yeah. God. I’m so sorry, I had-“

“Do save the apologies for the appropriate party. You leave at noon tomorrow. And before then, get yourself looking at least presentable. I’ve left some funds on the table there to help you prepare for the trip. I’ll be seeing you upon your return.”

After Mycroft left, John got out of the bed and went over to find a terrifying amount of money on her table. She wondered for a second if there had been a mistake - then knew as soon as she’d thought it that Mycroft didn’t make those sorts of mistakes. She’d need a lot of supplies, after all. Guns and knives for protection, clothes, food, all sorts of stuff. She had no way of knowing what Sherlock - Christ, what a name - would be bringing, so she would have to prepare as if she’d be the only one doing so.

She spared one last moment before getting to work to think of the fact that it would just be her and the beautiful woman she’d stolen a first kiss from all the way to Hamunaptra. John would have to apologize straight off, and just hope for the best.

A day, a bath, a haircut, and a massive bag full of weapons later, John made her way to the dock in Cairo. She was trying to figure out how she should even go about trying to meet up with Sherlock when she spotted her standing in front of the boat.

Alone in her room after she’d tidied herself up and had time to think, John had wondered if being at risk of death and feeling like Sherlock was her one chance at escape had made her exaggerate how beautiful she was. As it turned out, if anything, Sherlock was even more beautiful than she remembered. In a wide-brimmed hat and a flowing white dress, she looked like a film star. John had to suppress the urge to flirt as she approached - as much as she was able.

“Ah. Ms. Holmes?”

Sherlock turned, and it took a moment before John saw the recognition flash over her face. Then, John had the delight of watching Sherlock Holmes blush up close. Right. So much for trying not to make things awkward - it was obviously going to be difficult to move past how John had treated her last time they’d met.

 

 

Still, before John could start babbling, Sherlock spoke, and smiled slightly. “Sherlock, please.” She stuck out her hand, and John shook it gratefully.

“Right. Sherlock. I’m John. It’s nice to meet you properly. Not from behind prison bars. Which, ah... I owe you an apology for that. Your sister-“

Sherlock was blushing again now that their hands had fallen back to their sides, and John tried not to look as entranced as she felt. “Forget her. She likes to involve herself in things that don’t concern her, you don’t have to apologize. It’s fine. Just forget it. We have more important things ahead, don’t we?”

Glad for a chance to leave any potential awkwardness behind them, John nodded and smiled, in spite of any lingering guilt. “I suppose so, yeah.”

There was a moment of silence as Sherlock looked at her sharply. “John isn’t your birth name. A nickname from when you were in the army, then?”

John opened her mouth, closed it again, nodded, and then finally managed to speak. “How do you do that? You knew I was ex-army as well, at the prison. Is it just that your sister-“

“Please do stop bringing up Mycroft, otherwise we really won’t get along.” John tried to look appropriately contrite, and nodded. Sherlock continued. “It’s got nothing to do with her, how I figure things out. I just... see them. It’s useful to what I do, seeing history in little details. I can see from that pocket watch you’re checking that you used to have a drinking problem - and a brother with the same issue.”

Though she knew she should have been ashamed or offended, and she was a little, John still found her jaw dropping. “That’s incredible. How did you figure that out?”

“You’re not angry?”

The sheepish question only solidified John’s decision to be more impressed than anything else. “No, no, I’m not. I’m too busy thinking the fact you can do that is brilliant. How do you do it?”

She watched as Sherlock relaxed, and smiled, and very nearly preened. It seemed like she didn’t get many compliments - John wanted desperately to fix that, suddenly. “It’s simple. I saw it in the pocketwatch, like I said. While you were checking it, to make certain the boat wasn’t going to leave us here, I saw the pawnbroker’s marks and scratches around the area for the winding key, and the initials on it. Pawnbroker’s marks, one of them was a pawn shop in Cairo only opened a year ago. Obviously because of your prison time the watch was sold there, and you just bought it back today. Meaning your brother didn’t give it to you today. In fact, why would your brother have given it to you at all without having your initials engraved as his had been? He would have been the one to get it from your father in first place, too, it’s a male family heirloom, why would he give it to his sister? So he died, and it passed to you. Some of the old scratches, then, under a layer of polish, are his. Of course you’ve polished the watch, you’re ex-military. When not covered in prison grime, you like to be at least somewhat neat. You respect your possessions. The new scratches, scratches in the polish, belong to you. When someone with an abundance of alcohol in their system goes to wind their watch, their hand shakes, they miss, resulting in scratches there. Anything I missed?”

It felt a lot like being swept off her feet. Before she could even try and filter her words, John spoke. “That’s extraordinary! Absolutely fantastic, christ, how could anyone get angry at you for being able to do that?”

The corner of Sherlock’s lips twitched up. “Unfortunately not everyone is appreciative of the truth as you are. But thank you, John.”

“Come on, don’t thank me. The fact that you can do that is just... incredible. Let me get your bags.”

Having noticed the men working on the ship preparing to launch, John grabbed Sherlock’s suitcase before she could object, and carried it up the gangplank. Still, Sherlock followed quickly after her and grabbed it back out of her hand as they reached the deck. John raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t need to be treated like I’m some sort of delicate female who needs to be taken care of.”

John was surprised, but chuckled. “Sherlock, I’m not a man. I was just trying to make sure we got up here on time. We’re going to have to watch out for each other in all this, and occasionally one of us will probably have to carry some of the other’s stuff. Please don’t think that means I think you’re any less capable than I am.” Sherlock huffed. John’s smile dropped, and she ducked her head. “Look, I get being wary, I do. I get that I’m here partly because you need some help with the map, but also partly because I’m functioning as protection of some sort. But I wasn’t trying to be condescending.”

“Certainly sound it.” Sherlock argued, turning and walking towards the front of the ship. “I can fence, I’ll have you know.”

Though that particular comment brought John up short, she tried to focus less on how attractive she found that thought and more on following Sherlock. “I’m glad. I’ll spare you the chivalry from now on unless you ask. Even though it wasn’t really my intention in the first place.”

“I just don’t want you thinking you can seduce me by coddling me.”

This time John actually stopped walking, and felt a little like she’d been slapped. She really hadn’t been trying to flirt - and even though she hoped Sherlock hadn’t meant it that way, it sounded like she was thinking of John as some sort of predatory bull-dagger trying to lure her into complacency. That was the price you paid, probably, for kissing a woman right when you met her, but it didn’t hurt any less just because John knew it was her own fault.

John stayed quiet, then, as they found out which room they were assigned to and made their way there. They each took a bed in unspoken agreement, John taking the bed closer to the door even though she planned to step back from being too protective. The fact of the matter was she was still the one with all the guns, and Sherlock was still the one with the important materials like the puzzle box, so it just made logical sense. Sherlock made some comment about wanting to have a look at the rest of the ship, and John just hummed and nodded, sitting on the bed and pulling out her gun holster and a couple of pistols. There was no knowing who was on the boat, but getting into fights and thrown in prison and in general living in a gritty sort of way for a few years had made John adequately watchful.

It hadn’t felt like too long before she followed Sherlock’s path out of the room and onto the main deck, but apparently it had been long enough for Sherlock to get into a disagreement - when John found her, Sherlock was talking to someone, and they both looked annoyed.

“Sherlock?” she asked just to get her attention.

Sherlock turned around and blinked, then sighed. “John, this is Lestrade. A man I knew back in London.”

“Oh, yeah, hello. Are you a friend of Sherlock’s?”

It was a man, older than John, but he was still fairly handome. The only way his age really showed was his grey hair. “I’m a colleague, yeah.” John said back to him. “So how did you two know each other?”

“We worked together at the British Museum, before Sherlock decided to leave and come here instead.” John was a little surprised by that idea, and turned to Sherlock with a raised eyebrow. She was ignored.

“Right, with good reason. But ignoring that, back to my earlier point, what in the hell are you doing here, Lestrade? Did my sister send you? Is one babysitter not enough?” Again, John winced. Still, it helped explain some of Sherlock’s issues with her earlier. Sherlock obviously knew Mycroft had properly arranged her coming and thought John was there to watch her. In a way, maybe she was, but she certainly wasn’t doing it for Mycroft. Maybe John could try and convince her of that later.

Lestrade looked startled. “Your sister? God, no, we’ve barely spoken. Why would... Look, I’m here on museum business. We’re going on a dig, trying to make some acquisitions.”

“Oh, good. More stealing.”

“It’s perfectly-”

“Perfectly legal, yes, yes, as I’ve heard you say a thousand times, every time I tried to tell you there were issues with what we did. Where are you planning to plunder this time?” This was an old argument, apparently. John could hear it in Sherlock’s voice.

“Well. You won’t believe this, but Hamunaptra.”

John looked over at Sherlock and found her surprised as well. Sherlock bounced back quickly, though, and faked a smile. “What a coincidence, us too.”

Lestrade looked shocked, too, then. “Really? You figured out where it is?”

“In a way. How are you getting there?”

“Well we could all just go together at this point. The whole bunch of us are likely to find it, yeah?”

Sherlock scoffed. “I’m not helping you find Hamunaptra so you can steal everything and take it back to England, Lestrade.”

The first response was just a weary sigh. “Right. Well, fine. We’ve got someone who knows where it is. He’s been there.”

John could feel Sherlock looking at her that time, but she just looked at Lestrade with eyebrows raised. Sherlock started to say “That’s not-” but John quietly nudged her in the leg with her foot.

Lestrade looked between them for a moment, but appeared to decide to let it go. “You’re probably right that it shouldn’t be possible. But the bloke we’ve got is pretty convincing. He was there with his army regiment, he’s over there playing cards at the moment, with the rest of the team. His name’s Murray.”

For a moment John thought she’d just heard wrong. Thought, well, surely there’s more than one Murray who’s been to Hamunaptra - but then she glanced where Lestrade was pointing, and saw him. Bill Murray. Bill Murray who had left her in the desert, bleeding out, left her there to rot. Her fists clenched at her sides, John excused herself with a few attemptedly polite words and went over to where he was sitting, slapping him heartily on the shoulder.

“Murray! God, wow, fancy running into you here! It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

By the time she had finished her statement, her fingers were digging into his shoulder, and he was looking up at her with a mixture of confusion and terror. Her grin was tinged with anger.

“Why don’t you come with me and we’ll catch up?”

Bill excused himself, and let himself be yanked out of everyone’s sight, into a cargo area. John shoved him against a wall, hands clenched in his shirt. “I should kill you, right here. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

For a moment, Bill only stammered, but John shoved at him again, and he smiled, nervously. “You wouldn’t want to upset your new friend, would you? She’s very pretty-”

John punched him in the face without ceremony, and dropped him back to the ground so he could hold his bleeding nose. “You left me to die out there.”

“I knew you would find your way out, Watson. You were always resourceful.”

Again, John punched him, this time in the stomach.

“Jesus! You really... you’re still good at that.”

“Funny enough, you don’t really lose your fighting skills in prison.”

She watched Murray swallow. “Prison?”

John gave him another small, threatening smile. “Long story. So explain why you’re taking a group of archaeologists from the British Museum to Hamunaptra. Why would you go back?”

“Money, of course. Why the hell do you think I’d be doing it? They paid through the teeth to have me get them there and back - half now and half when we get back of course. Too bad it couldn’t have been a bunch of idiot Americans. Still. It’s an awful lot of money. I’ll stay out of their way, stay out of trouble, and I’ll be a very rich man when this is all over. What about you? Are you just thinking with your downstairs again, Watson? That’s certainly not-”

This time John punched him in the throat to cut him off, and left him gasping. “You really ought to learn when to shut up, Murray. Just like you said. Stay out of the way. You stay out of mine, and I’ll try not to let my fist slip again. Alright?”

He nodded at her, coughing, and John made her way out of their little cubby and back to the room, where she found Sherlock sitting on her bed, reading.

She thought of trying to hide her bloody knuckles or her disheveled appearance, but knew it wouldn’t work well enough to fool Sherlock. Instead, she just sighed and sat down on her bed, digging in her things until she found a strip of fabric to wrap around her hand. John waited for Sherlock to say something, but she didn’t.

John spoke first instead. “He was with my regiment, in Hamunaptra. I don’t know how he got back. But he was specifically working with me directly. He was with me when I was shot, and instead of helping me, he left me there to die. Only I didn’t.”

“Shot in the shoulder,” Sherlock clarified quietly. Another thing she’d noticed, apparently. John nodded, and sighed again, sitting back against the wall.

“I had to stitch myself up and wander. I found some traders who were riding through right as I passed out. I’m lucky nothing worse happened to me, but they got me to somewhere safe, and where some women took care of me while my shoulder got infected and I was in and out of consciousness.”

Going back into her things, John dug around for her sleep clothes and pulled them out.

“Infected gunshot wound. Must be an impressive scar.”

John snorted, and smiled slightly, looking over at Sherlock. “Are you asking to see it?”

Sherlock looked mildly embarrassed, and John saved her from having to say anything by taking her clothes and bag into the bathroom to ready herself for bed.

It was only moments after she’d gotten into the bathroom that she heard some noises outside the room. It could have just been Sherlock moving around, but the muffled voice sounded like Sherlock was talking to someone, and she didn’t sound relaxed or even just annoyed like she had earlier with Lestrade. This was different. John was relieved she’d left her gun holster on.

After a quiet one-two-three count, she opened the door and burst back into the room, pointing her gun towards the door. Sherlock was backed against the counter, and there was a man with a knife standing in front of her. John moved her aim and shot the man in the shoulder, kept hold of her bag, grabbed another one, and grabbed Sherlock, who grabbed the puzzle box, and they made their way onto the deck.

Somehow, everything had quickly descended into chaos. Someone had found out that they knew the way to Hamunaptra, obviously, and wanted the chance to go instead. Someone in the British Museum crew had probably unwittingly tipped them off somehow. Now the boat was full of looters, John could smell smoke and fire and gunpowder, and it was obvious that the boat was going to be a lost cause. She turned to Sherlock.

“Do you have what you need?”

“The map is back in the room, I was studying it, I’ll-”

“Forget the map, I’m the map. Do you need anything else you had in that room?”

Sherlock shook her head, and John handed her one of the bags. “The boat’s on fire. We’re gonna have to-” She caught sight of a looter over Sherlock’s shoulder, aimed her gun, shot, and watched him fall back. “We’re gonna have to go overboard. Staying on here’s just gonna be a lost cause. Can you swim?”

“Yes, I can swim. Come on, then.” And before John was even fully ready, Sherlock was yanking her towards the side and jumping over, still holding onto her arm.

John barely managed to keep her gun above her head and out of the water as they hit the icy cold river. She surfaced, and found Sherlock right next to her, equally as fine. They watched the boat, watched the crew and all of the British Museum archaeologists and even Murray make it into the water before the boat went down.

“Lestrade’s not completely incompetent when it comes to protecting himself. I’m sure the looters are mostly taken care of,” Sherlock said, and John realized she’d still been on edge, waiting for one of them to pop out of the water and try to attack them. She nodded, and headed towards shore, Sherlock swimming beside her.

After they reached shore, they dropped their things and went back in to try and salvage some of the things that had gone down with the boat or fallen off of it - they got some food, and one of Sherlock’s trunks.

Sherlock and John had set up on one side of the river, Murray and Lestrade’s team on the other. John, ignoring her desire to laugh at them, was about to suggest she and Sherlock head for the nearest outpost when she heard Murray shouting across the river at her.

“Hey Watson! Looks to me like we’ve got all the horses!”

Ignoring Sherlock’s glance at her, John dropped her bag, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted back. “Hey Murray! It looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the river!”

She could hear Sherlock chuckling behind her, and when she turned, Sherlock was even grinning at her. John grinned back, picked up her half of their things, and started walking, knowing Sherlock would follow.

They made it to the outpost before daybreak, and John used the last of her stash of money that hadn’t gone down with the boat to get them a room for the night. When they woke up it was late, and they repacked and made their way out to get some camels for the ride to Hamunaptra. It would be an overnight ride, now.

Sherlock had to pay for the camels - they took three, one for each of them and one for carrying the rest of their things.

Still, when they’d heard the price, Sherlock had seemed reluctant.

“We won’t need money in Hamunaptra, you know. And we shouldn’t need much to make our way back to Cairo after we’re done. I’m sorry that I don’t have any left, but as long as it’s not the rest of your money...”

Sherlock shook her head and shot John an unhappy look. “No, it isn’t that. I just won’t have any money left to pay you with when we get back to Cairo.”

John’s brow furrowed. “You were planning to pay me?”

“Well it only seemed fair.”

Sighing, John shook her head and gave the money to the camel merchant, tugging the reins to bring their camels away to load them up. “I don’t want your money, Sherlock. You and your sister saved my life, I owe you. The least I can do is take you back to Hamunaptra so you can see what you’re looking for and then get you back home. I may as well use the knowledge I’ve got for something.”

“But if you’re not making any money off of our trip, you could be working instead. What will you do when you get back?”

John shrugged, and starting picking up bags. “I’ll figure it out.”

Like that, the subject was dropped.

The two of them got onto their camels, and with John in the lead and the camel laden with cargo attached to her own, they rode in silence for some time. Eventually Sherlock made her camel trot up, and they were riding side by side.

“You never really confirmed that John was an army nickname,” Sherlock said. “I assume I was right because you nodded, but you didn’t tell me any more about it.”

It was an obvious conversation starter, but riding all the way to Hamunaptra in silence sounded terrible - and Sherlock was interesting. John liked her. They may as well get to know each other better.

She smiled. “Yeah, it was an army nickname. But I guess that actually it didn’t start that way. Growing up with a brother, obviously I got pretty jealous that he could do all sorts of things I couldn’t. Da favored him pretty heavily. Always the way with boys. Of all the things it could lead to, I actually ended up getting jealous of his name. Johanna was pretty awful, and anyways I was meant to be named after my father, who was actually named John, so I told Harry I wanted a boy name thinking it would make him take me more seriously. It didn’t, really. But he did start calling me John, and it stuck. Other kids would call me John, even mum picked it up. Then... Well when I was in London before the army, when I would... meet women, John seemed like the right name to use. Then obviously the army blokes picked it up, yeah. Like I was going to let those bastards call me Johanna. Though, I say that, I don’t really want anyone calling me Johanna. Like I said, it’s awful.”

Sherlock grinned at her. “I would disagree, but... It is fairly awful. And my parents named my sister Mycroft.”

John laughed, and smiled back. “I like your name though! I’ve never heard it before, which honestly sort of suits you. Wouldn’t seem right for you to be named something unoriginal.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard someone manage to make that all into a compliment. The number of times I’ve heard interesting or unique in that particular ‘I’m trying not to insult you’ tone of voice... It’s exhausting. It reaches a point where I’d rather be insulted. Which is usually what I get now, actually.”

In spite of the fact that she still hardly knew Sherlock, John found herself frowning again. “Bunch of pricks, all of them.” She looked over and saw Sherlock smiling at her. “I mean it! Look, it’s obvious to me that you can be a little callous, but I bet some of those insults are pretty unique to the fact that you’re a woman, yeah? And the fact that you’re smarter than them. They get intimidated by you, and they try to bite back. Doesn’t change the fact that they’re never gonna be as good as you are.”

There was a silence, and John saw Sherlock flush out of the corner of her eye. “That’s all very sweet. But I’ll admit I earned a few of the insults fair and square. I’d have earned it if you insulted me. I kept trying to test you, because I felt like my sister had tasked you with looking after me. But you’re out of money and not taking mine, and you’re still here. So obviously you have your own reasons. Anything I said about... well the things I said when you tried to pick up my luggage. I’m sorry about that.”

John was too relieved to be angry, then - too glad Sherlock hadn’t meant it to get stuck on the fact that she’d still said it. “It’s fine. Your sister only gave me money for supplies. If anything, she tried to warn me off... stepping over any lines. Which, I told her that obviously I wasn’t really planning anything at the prison, anyways. I thought I’d never get out. It wasn’t the start of some big plan.”

There was a moment that was slightly too long to be normal before Sherlock snorted. “Mycroft should learn to keep to her own business and stay out of mine.”

The comment didn’t address John, and by the time she’d thought of speaking again, Sherlock’s camel had slowed again, and they were riding separately once more. She couldn’t tell if Sherlock was upset with her for mentioning the kiss again or not, but she wasn’t going to ask. Instead, she looked towards the horizon, where the sun was starting to set, and kept riding.

Once the stars were out, and it had been a couple of hours, Sherlock came up beside her again.

“The stars are nice.”

John hummed and nodded. “Being out here in the middle of nothing will do that. Certainly makes it easier to navigate, though, having the north star so visible.”

“The north star?”

It took a moment for John to process what had confused Sherlock, then she looked over with a small, amused smile. “Do you not know anything about the stars?”

Sherlock shrugged. “I never had reason to learn. Would you like to teach me something?”

“Well. The north star is...” John let go of the reins with one hand to point. “You see that really bright star, right up there?”

After a few moments, Sherlock nodded.

“Right. That’s the north star. Constellations are a bit harder to explain when you’re in motion - but basically we’ve found patterns in the stars and tried to say they look like certain things. Bears or warriors or other animals. A lot of it stems from Greek mythology.”

“Pity it’s not based on Egyptian mythology, then I might be interested.”

John laughed, and shook her head. “Is there anything else you know so much about? Or is it just Egypt and how to read people’s lives in tiny details?”

“There are certain things you have to know to read the tiny details. I can read the tiny details in artifacts and preserved bodies, too. You have to know what kinds of tools make certain marks, what kind of work leaves particular traces.” Sherlock paused. “I can’t tell you all my secrets, though. You’ll be left unimpressed, and then you’ll be taking over my job.”

“Absolutely not.” John made eye contact with Sherlock. “You’ve obviously made a masterwork of all that stuff. Even if I studied for years I don’t think I’d be doing better than you. You’re really incredible. What you do is incredible.”

She watched Sherlock blush again, and that time they fell into a comfortable silence until Sherlock seemed to get lost in thought, and John let her, staying quiet as well until they started to near Hamunaptra.

The closer they got, the more John started to remember, and the more she started being able to use bones in the sand as landmarks. She could see Sherlock noticing all the skeletons as well, but neither of them said anything. It was a dangerous place, and a dangerous trip. They had both already known that.

When they started to approach the best vantage point for the city, John could see a camp just a mile or two east of them. She stopped, and got Sherlock to stop, and soon Murray and Lestrade and their team came riding up next to them.

“Well, good to see you two again,” Lestrade said genuinely. John smiled half-heartedly at him, and Sherlock hummed and turned away. John could tell he was a nice bloke, but the fact that he had Murray working for him made John a little less friendly than she could have been.

There were a man and a woman with Lestrade, and a few other lower level workers.

“You know when you said she was here I almost didn’t believe you. Hello, Sherlock.” It was the woman speaking. Sherlock looked annoyed, still refusing to look at any of them, her shoulders hunched.

“Hello, Sally.”

“Still using your parents’ money to muck around Egypt instead of actually doing work?” Sally asked. John frowned a bit, and looked at Sherlock. She had straightened up a bit, and was glaring properly now.

“Still sleeping with Anderson?”

The woman flushed, and so did the other man with them. It was obviously inappropriate of Sherlock to point it out, but she had trouble feeling sorry for the woman when she’d immediately started off the conversation so rudely.

The argument would have kept going, except that Murray told them all to shut up. John was tempted to try and hit him off his camel, but she decided she could wait.

“Why are we shutting up?” Sherlock asked her.

John shook her head. “We don’t actually have to be quiet. But we do need to be paying attention - it’s only right at sunrise that you can see Hamunaptra. Some kind of weird optical illusion, I’m not sure how it works.”

“It’s not an illusion. It’s part of the curse,” Murray said.

Sherlock rolled her eyes, but John didn’t have time to laugh, because the sun started to rise, and the mist started to clear. The city shimmered into sight before them, almost glistening in the sun. It was all ruins, weathered pillars and crumbling structures made of sandy stone, but it was impossible to deny that it still had a touch of majesty.

As soon as it came into view, everyone started riding towards it. It was an unspoken race, at least between herself and Murray. The two of them were ahead of everyone else, the rest of them having needed a moment to realize they were meant to be headed this way.

Sherlock was much closer than Lestrade’s team, though.

As they kept riding, it turned out that Sherlock had a way with camels, and she pulled ahead of John, who had pulled ahead of Murray. Deciding to try and have a bit of fun, John rode straight for a dune, turned just in time, and left Murray riding straight into it, pitching forward and into the sand as his camel stopped. Bastard never had been very good at paying any attention to his surroundings when it mattered.

Sherlock was far ahead of John, and got into the city first, grinning as she did. John grinned back at her and shouted happily, and watched as Sherlock threw a hand up in response.

The cargo camel was still behind her, having kept up surprisingly well, so she brought both of them in got down next to Sherlock, stretching and trying to loosen up after sitting on the camel for the entire night.

Her hips ached and her knees would barely move, but she had gotten them to Hamunaptra. She watched as Sherlock went through some of the bags and brought out dig tools.

Sherlock went walking off almost immediately like she didn’t need any food or rest, and John tried not to just gape after her. Instead, she grabbed some bread out of the bag, wrapped it up, and followed after Sherlock.

They arrived at the opening to a tomb, and Sherlock climbed down without hesitation. John put a few things in her belt, tied a rope around a nearby pillar, and used that to lower herself down as well. When she got down, she found Sherlock standing in front of a decrepit statue of Anubis. She was smiling, more excited than John had seen her since she’d gotten the initial spark in her eye at hearing that John had actually been to Hamunaptra.

“Is that what you were looking for?”

Sherlock nodded, and turned to make eye contact. “The markings on the tomb outside were exactly right. This statue of Anubis is where the Book of Amun-Ra - the Book of the Living, is said to be buried. That’s what I wanted to have a look at. It’s an old ritual book, it’s referenced constantly in writings that we have access to, but no one knew what it actually contained. I would love just to be able to read it.”

“It’s awfully dark down here to start digging.”

“Right, yes.”

Sherlock moved to a mirror and started pushing at it, but it was obviously rusted from years of disuse. John went over and pushed with her and when they hit the right angle the room lit up.

“That’s an old trick-”

“The mirrors reflect the outside light around the room. I know. I’m not completely clueless about all this.”

The look on Sherlock’s face had some obvious surprise in it, but it seemed she was pleasantly so. John was glad to have put the expression on her face. Still, instead of lingering on that thought, she went over to the base of the statue and started looking around. There were noises echoing through the chamber. John turned quickly, pulling out her gun, and found herself face to face with Lestrade and his crew.

“Christ, hello, then.” Lestrade put his hands up, and John relaxed, lowering her gun.

“Sorry.”

Sherlock walked over, all the better to glare at Lestrade. “What are you doing here?”

“Could ask you the same thing,” Sally replied, her arms crossed.

“We’re here to dig at the base of Anubis. We were here first. And you?”

One of the other workers opened their mouth, but Lestrade held up his hand. “Sherlock. You don’t have any kind of authorization to do that.”

“And you do?”

“We’re here on official sanction of the British Museum,” Lestrade said, sounding genuinely regretful. “You are, by all intents and purposes, an amateur. You’ll have to find somewhere else, and if you do any digging, it’ll have to be somewhere far away from us.”

“That’s completely unfair!” John exclaimed. “Do you have any idea-”

John was cut off as Sherlock grabbed her arm. “Let it go, John. We’ll go and find somewhere else to dig. Enjoy your statue, Lestrade.” Surprisingly, Sherlock didn’t sound bitter at all. Once they were out of the tomb and away from the others, John raised her eyebrows at Sherlock.

“What was that? You’re giving up that easily?”

Sherlock smiled, something small and secret. “I’ve calculated that the tombs run deep enough that there should be another room right below the statue. We can find that room and dig up from the bottom. We’ll get to the book first. It won’t be a problem.”

Unable to stop herself, John laughed, and she followed Sherlock into another entrance, taking rope and food and whatever they might need.

It took them some time to find the right room, wandering through dusty and long-empty corridors, but once they did, Sherlock nodded, set her things on a table, and stopped to look around. The room was dark and full of signs of how long it had been left empty. It also had a terrible smell that permeated every part of it - the worst possible mix of musty atmosphere and rot. It wasn’t completely unlike the smell of a basement morgue. “There probably hasn’t been anyone down here in hundreds of years,” she said quietly, and John knew she was right. It was a strange feeling. It fell away though, as Sherlock climbed up on top of a table and started going to work at the ceiling with her tools.

“This was actually a preparation room. If you’ve noticed the smell - that’s the source of it.”

“Preparation for what exactly?”

“The afterlife,” Sherlock replied in a gleeful voice, stopping her work to turn and grin at John. John tried not to giggle, and failed. “They embalmed bodies here, wrapped them, prepared them for burial. It was a fascinating process.”

John nodded and looked around. She realized they’d probably embalmed the bodies on the very table Sherlock was standing on, and she had to cover her face for a moment. Then she thought of the little knowledge she had on mummies. “Wasn’t there a bit about pulling the brains out through the nose?”

Sherlock hummed in agreement. “Yes, with a red hot poker. They’d have to loosen everything up with the heat, cut it into pieces before they yanked it all out. That is one thing to note, though - unlike other organs, the brain was tossed unceremoniously. Had I lived then, I believe I would have had some objection to that.”

“You’d be dead, Sherlock. What does it matter?”

“Well I would certainly rather have my dead brain preserved than my useless body. I suppose if you believe human content lies in the soul instead of the mind, you would care more about the body. The body was a transportation vessel for the soul to many Egyptians, I suppose, the same way my body is merely transportation for my brain to me - and it was important in afterlife ritual. I just despise the idea of my body being the one part of me that remains.”

John considered what Sherlock said, tilting her head and watching her work. “Assuming I still know you, and you die before I do, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.”

Sherlock snorted, but John could see the smile that had crept onto her face.

John ate, and Sherlock worked, and after a while John climbed up and started to help her. She’d lost track of how long they’d been working when Sherlock decided to take a break, sitting on the table next to where John was standing, and John encouraged her to eat while she rested.

She was still chipping away at the ceiling on her own when she heard cracking, and suddenly Sherlock was pulling her off of the table and out of the way. They landed together in the sand a few feet away from the table, and there was a large stone thing lying on the table where they’d been standing and sitting just a few moments before.

They looked at each other, Sherlock laying on top of John, and they both slowly started to grin, laughing, Sherlock hunching forward, her forehead pressing against John’s shoulder.

“I cannot believe - of all the ridiculous ways I could have died. All that work and we could have been crushed by a big stone box,” Sherlock said through the chuckles.

John shook her head and couldn’t stop laughing. One of her hands was resting lightly against Sherlock’s waist. “Both of us! I went to war, I’ve been shot at, and I nearly got murdered by an inanimate object because I didn’t even think about the fact that that would happen when we were digging up into the ceiling and looking for something. It’s ridiculous.”

Sherlock lifted her head up and grinned. There was a wild edge to it, only emphasized by how frizzy Sherlock’s hair was, how the low lighting threw shadows on her angular face and made her eyes stand out even more.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, John smiled back, but moved out from under Sherlock carefully and went over to the large stone... object. With a closer look, it looked a lot like a sarcophagus. There were hieroglyphics on it, and she looked over to Sherlock, who was still sitting on the ground. “Can you read any of this?”

With a huff, Sherlock stood, dusted herself off, and pushed up her sleeves. She came over to the table and started looking.

“Well, it’s a sarcophagus. A sarcophagus... which was buried at the base of Anubis.”

Sherlock’s tone had shifted to something more serious, and John was a little alarmed by the strange hint in it. “And why would that happen?”

Humming, Sherlock moved around the sarcophagus. “It could either be a considerable honor, or... a terrible punishment. It’s difficult to be sure.”

She was scanning the markings when her eyes stopped on something, and John looked where she appeared to be looking. There was an indentation in the stone, and it looked sort of familiar.

“Is that...”

“A hole for your puzzle box. Yes. It is.”

They looked at each other, realizing they’d have to go back and get the key when they heard screaming. Both of them startled and ran for the exit, trying to get back to the other team and find out the source of the commotion.

Outside by the camels they ran into Lestrade, who looked pale and absolutely terrified. “We heard screaming. Did something happen?” Sherlock asked.

Lestrade nodded, still silent. After a moment he scrubbed a hand over his face and made eye contact with Sherlock. “We lost some workers. We got the base of the statue revealed, and we were having some of the others pry it open, and it was... rigged somehow. Sally figures it was pressurized salt acid. Melted the skin right off the poor bastards. It never would have happened if...”

“It just would have happened to you instead. No one ever wants to assume the dig they’re on is rigged with something dangerous. It’s hard to be prepared even if you think it might be. It isn’t solely your fault.”

John nodded along to Sherlock’s words. “Dangerous jobs mean people are putting themselves at risk. As somebody who’s done a fair share of dangerous work... They probably knew the stories about Hamunaptra. They knew there was a risk. I’m not saying it makes it any less sad, but I agree with Sherlock. You can’t sit around and blame yourself.”

Lestrade nodded again, and shot them a weary but grateful look. “Thanks, you two. I’m glad you didn’t have any mishaps today.”

John thought of telling him about the falling sarcophagus, but another glance at his tired expression and the knowledge that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself laughing a bit made her decide against it. Instead she just nodded and took Sherlock’s hand, pulling her towards the camels. It was late, nearing dusk. They would need to set up camp still anyways.

“Didn’t seem right to tell him a funny story while he was mourning,” John murmured as she pulled tent supplies from one of their bags. “We could go back down there tonight and open the sarcophagus, but it’s hardly going anywhere and it’s getting late. Plus after that story, and what I know about Hamunaptra... I’m a little bit weary about opening anything else.”

Sherlock scoffed at her. “They were breaking into the home of a well known treasure. We found a body - and one that probably was intended to never be found. From the markings I saw, his burial was a punishment. It’s almost certain they thought no one would want to open his sarcophagus again, so why would they bother to rig it? They rigged things they thought would be robbed.”

John had started setting up their tent, but paused her work to look at Sherlock. “So you don’t believe in curses, then?”

Another scoff - more pointed this time. “I believe if I can see it and I can touch it, then it’s real. That’s what I believe. So. No. No curses. Are you saying you do?”

Shaking her head, John draped the fabric over the tent poles. “I believe in being prepared, no matter what I might think about it.”

She finished setting up the tent, and they were both quiet. John figured that Sherlock was probably disappointed in her inability to be above believing in paranormal influence. John was still busy being shaken by the fact that while she and Sherlock had been celebrating their own survival of a brief near death experience, three people had died just above them. She didn’t have the capacity to worry about Sherlock thinking poorly of her at the same time.

After the tent, John set up a fire, and sat down by it. Sherlock wordlessly joined her. She pulled out food and offered some to Sherlock, and they both ate. Then, John pulled out a bottle of gin she’d found just the other night - something that had probably come from the boat resources.

“You want any?” she asked Sherlock.

With a nod, Sherlock took the bottle and took a long drink. She passed it back to John, who did the same. They went back and forth drinking until half the bottle was gone. Then Sherlock spoke.

“If you’re so frightened of this place... Of what you think it’s capable of, why did you agree to bring me back here? Why did you come? It can’t just be because you feel as if you owe me. You could have just written me directions.”

John shrugged, and sipped. “I could’ve. But it wasn’t just that I felt like I owed you. I...” She looked at Sherlock, meeting her eyes. “I’ve never been very good at saying no to a good mystery.” There was the mystery of Hamunaptra that she was referring to in part, but she also meant Sherlock. She wasn’t sure if that came across in her words or not. “Which... speaking of mysteries. I know why you came to Hamunaptra - to solve the great mystery and all. But I still don’t really understand how you got interested in all this in the first place... In Egyptian history.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock smiled, and grabbed the bottle from John’s hand, taking another swig. “I... have always had trouble, finding things that would hold my attention - at least for any length of time. I get bored fairly easily. I spent a lot of the time growing up moving from topic to topic as I lost interest, but one day I found some books my father had about Egypt. About the history and mythology. There was just... so much of it. So much we didn’t know yet, so much we couldn’t know because things get lost to time, writings become difficult to translate as language dies and people try to retrieve it. Even when people can say ‘Oh Egyptians believed this...’ They can’t really say that. Because the Ancient Egyptians were individuals. Even of the people in this camp right now we can’t say there’s an overarching agreement of beliefs. Most of them may believe I’m a horrible freak-”

“Oh don’t say that.” John lifted a hand to Sherlock’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. 

Sherlock smiled at her, slowly. “Most of them excluding you, then. But I was going to say... We can’t all agree on it. Ancient Egyptians were just as much individuals! So we can’t... We can’t discover every life and every facet, we can work for all eternity just trying to, though, so we can never run out of things to discover. There’s an obvious appeal in that, I think.” Sighing wistfully, Sherlock tilted a little, lost her balance, and ended up leaning against John. John let her. “Sometimes I wish there was a way I could talk to one of them. Bring someone back to life, travel back in time, just to hear from someone directly.”

John smiled and took another long swig from the bottle. “I’m going to ask you very politely not to wake up any of the mummies.”

Sherlock dissolved into giggles, the alcohol having obviously affected her by this point. She reached for the bottle, fell a little short, and just gave up, her hand falling by her side. “I won’t, I won’t. I’ll try not to. The one we found especially... No evil mummies. Wouldn’t want that.”

Turning her head, John started to respond, and found herself closer to Sherlock’s face than she’d realized she would be. They looked at each other for a long moment.

 

 

“John... You kissed me... I never kissed you back. I owe you one.”

With that, Sherlock leaned in slowly, and then promptly fell against John’s chest and passed out.

John was blushing furiously as she tried to adjust Sherlock, and realized she was absolutely out cold. It took some work, but she managed to get her into the tent and on her own side. After some internal debate, John just decided to get over it and lay down in the tent as well, though it took her a long time to convince herself that Sherlock had only been drunk, and as a result she could stop thinking about the kiss like it had meant anything.

When she woke up and Sherlock was gone, there wasn’t really much more convincing that needed to be done. She made her way outside and found Sherlock at the fire, having breakfast. They ate in silence, both aware of the other’s hangover, and made their way down to the tomb afterwards with the puzzle box.

The sarcophagus unlocked with an obvious and loud hissing sound, but they would still have to push the lid off. They both leaned into it and started shoving, but then stopped immediately at the first loud scrape of stone on stone.

“I cannot believe how much you convinced me to drink.”

John groaned quietly. “There wasn’t any convincing needed. You took the bottle yourself, you must be remembering it wrong.”

Sherlock shook her head, then hissed. “That would require remembering it.”

The words confirmed what John had feared, and she didn’t even bother to say anything back, trying not to let her disappointment show on her face. Just the alcohol, then. That was fine.

They both went back to pushing, and John didn’t have the brain space to worry about it anyways. It was difficult enough to work through the hangover.

Eventually the lid off the sarcophagus fell of onto the ground, and after more wincing at the noise, she and Sherlock found the coffin inside and managed to pull it out. They put it on the ground and sat it upright, leaning against the preparation table.

Just having one less layer between them and the mummy inside seemed to change the atmosphere of the room, at least to John. There was a tension there that hadn’t been there before. Even if it was just her imagination, it was unsettling.

Sherlock wiped off the front of the wooden coffin, and then stopped, blinking.

“What is it?”

Shaking her head, she pulled John over by the wrist. “See these areas where something’s been chiseled off? Those are the areas where the protection spells would have been. They’ve been deliberately removed.”

John licked her lips, and nodded. “So the burial here was definitely a punishment, then.”

“Yes. It absolutely was.”

“Right.” John nodded, and moved around Sherlock. This time she took the puzzle box and placed it in the lock, twisting it around until they heard the hiss. The smell of the room she had noted the day before - now undeniably a smell of death - got even worse, and the lid got stuck. John tugged Sherlock to the right side and they both pulled until it snapped open and a corpse jumped forward from the inside.

Cursing loudly, John pulled Sherlock back, and Sherlock grabbed John as well. Then John realized that the corpse was still stationary and had only been stuck to the front of the coffin, which had made it come leaping out as it opened. They were still left clinging to each other a few feet away from the coffin, starting at it with wide eyes as they processed the trick. Very slowly, they both relaxed and laughed half-heartedly at each other, but they didn’t let go. Instead, they approached the coffin again with John’s hand back on Sherlock’s wrist.

They looked, together, at the misshapen corpse and at the inside of the coffin. “He looks like he’s still decomposing...” John said, her confusion clear in her tone.

Sherlock nodded, moving closer so that her head was practically on John’s shoulder. “There are fingernail scratches on the inside of the coffin, there. Do you see?”

John turned and reached her hand out, but she didn’t dare to touch. Sherlock was right. “So he was... still alive, when he was buried.”

“I don’t know why I’m so... This is my area of interest. But there’s something wrong with the way this man was buried.”

“He’d be a hell of a mummy to try and wake up and talk to.” John tried to crack a grin, but the joke fell flat even to her, and after Sherlock weakly smiled back, they looked back at the coffin.

“There are hieroglyphics there below the fingernail marks... He wrote something with his bloodied finger.” Sherlock moved in front of John, still holding her arm, but tracing over the markings with her finger. “It says... Death is only... the beginning.”

They exchanged glances, and for whatever reason, that was what made both of them decide it was time to head back to the camp for the day. John gladly left the mummy and the coffin, and they took their supplies and the puzzle box and went back up to the surface to eat and rest some more. It wasn’t dark yet, though it had taken longer to get into the sarcophagus and the coffin than they had thought it would.

Set up by the fire, they had bread, cheese, and water for dinner. They sat close to each other, quiet, still thinking back over the unnerving atmosphere of the room and the mummy. John knew she wasn’t usually so easily shaken, and she had a feeling Sherlock wasn’t either. Despite Sherlock having scoffed at her for it the day before, this had all convinced her more than ever that there was something strange and wrong about Hamunaptra.

Once they’d finished eating, Sherlock went digging around in her things and pulled out some books. She read for a while before she appeared to find what she’d been looking for, and pointed to it on the page. “I thought I’d read something about this before. About the burying alive, the lack of wrappings - there were scarab skeletons in his coffin as well. It’s a punishment... A curse, I suppose, called the Hom-Dai. It was the worst thing imaginable, only used on the worst of blasphemers. Only imagined up until now because actually everyone was under the impression it had never really been used. As it turns out, it was. On this man. I can’t imagine what he could have done to warrant it.”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“The Ancient Egyptians never used it because they were afraid of it. The trouble was that anyone who was under this curse, if they came back from the dead, they brought chaos with them. The ten plagues of Egypt. Biblical plagues.”

Sherlock seemed to have lost her strange mood to the interest in finding someone who’d been cursed this way. “Good thing we don’t believe in all that, then,” John remarked.

The joke worked to lighten the mood this time, and Sherlock grinned. “As if anyone could bring that mummy back from the dead.”

John smiled, too, and felt comfortable enough again that when Sherlock said she wanted to go and see what Lestrade’s crew had found that day, she didn’t worry about letting her go on her own. Night had fallen by then, and John was fine sitting there and watching the stars.

When Sherlock came back, she brought a book with her, and John raised her eyebrows.

“Lestrade’s crew found this today. It appears to be the Book of the Dead instead of the Book of the Living. Still very exciting, though. I thought I’d have a look.”

Blinking, John leaned in to get a better view. “Is he really letting you borrow that?”

Sherlock gave her a small and conspiratorial sort of smile, much like the one she’d gotten when deciding to dig up into the base of Anubis. “I may have just taken it. But I’ll give it back.”

Shaking her head, John laughed. It wasn’t as if she was going to tell - if anyone deserved to take a look at the thing, it was Sherlock. She watched her flip open the cover and start looking, but then focused back on cleaning her gun. She’d started while Sherlock was gone. Soon she heard Sherlock start to read aloud. She found it fascinating to hear her speaking the language. She put her gun away and looked up. After Sherlock finished and started to flip the page, she heard a very distant buzzing. A little startled, she looked up, and after a few moments she saw something that looked like a moving wall in the distance. The closer it got, the more it broke into clumps, and the more apparent it was that the wall was acually an entire swarm of locusts.

“Jesus.” John grabbed Sherlock to get her attention and they gathered most of their things and hurried down to the tomb, into the room with the Anubis statue, to take shelter. They could hear some of Lestrade’s crew screaming in the distance, and John looked at the book. “You were reading from that. Do you know what you were reading?”

Sherlock scoffed even as she fidgeted with the book and put it into a bag. “Locusts are a seasonal event in Egypt. I didn’t bring them swarming to life.”

It wasn’t long before Lestrade and some of the others ran into them in the tomb, breathing heavily. “Is it really the time of year for the locusts to be out?” Lestrade asked, and John looked at Sherlock.

The expression on Sherlock’s face was starting to edge towards a willful denial that she’d done anything wrong.

They were all hovering awkwardly, probably wondering if they should start to settle in, when they heard more chittering. Just a few seconds later, thousands upon thousands of scarabs came burrowing out of the ground, covering it, scurrying towards them.

Resisting the urge to scream, John just grabbed Sherlock again and started to run. The winding corridors became a maze, and John had no clue where she was trying to go - outside was likely still full of locusts, in here was filled with flesh-eating scarabs... Come to think of it, outside was probably the way to go.

She was trying to decide the best way to go, so when she got to the other side of a large divide, she stopped, trying to keep the scarabs away and remember the shortest path to an exit. She had let go of Sherlock when they stopped, and turned around to ask her if she knew where they should be going. Instead, she found the wall closing in front of her, and Sherlock nowhere to be found.

“Sherlock? Sherlock!”

Then, barely audible, muffled by the stone, she heard a reply. “John! I found a passageway! Try to make your way through.”

John started searching the wall for some way to make it turn or open again, but she heard the loud scurrying sounds returning. Then Lestrade shouted “Come on!” and she was off running again, this time with Lestrade and Sally, hoping she could find Sherlock along the way.

They followed several twists and turns, and John tried to direct them back towards the other side of the wall. After some running, she ran right into a room where she found Sherlock up against a wall.

Unfortunately, her brain was having a bit of trouble actually processing what she was seeing aside from Sherlock.

Sherlock was standing there, yes. But standing in front of Sherlock was the mummy. The rotting corpse they’d found in the coffin, it was moving and talking, and had Sherlock backed against the wall, whispering to her in Ancient Egyptian. It was the most gruesome and terrifying thing John had ever seen. The muscle and tendons that were left were all exposed, the bones moved in ways that just looked wrong - but she could see all of it. Every twitching bit of the rotting body was on display.

To her surprise, Sherlock said something forceful in Egyptian and shoved the mummy to the ground before running over to John. John pulled out her gun, fired several times at the mummy to keep it down and grabbed Sherlock’s wrist. She pulled her towards the exit, following Lestrade, Sally, and the others out of the tomb, straight for their camels, and out of Hamunaptra. She and Sherlock ended up sharing the camel that still had most of their stuff on it, Sherlock in front and John behind her. John was glad for the closeness of another real and living person, and she felt like Sherlock might be, too.

They were completely silent until they made it out of the city. Then Sherlock spoke. “Do you think you killed it?”

John shook her head. “I’m fairly certain it was still moving. Which makes sense. It didn’t have any blood or organs or a brain. How would I have killed it? It’s gonna take something more than a gun.”

They were both far out of their depth. Dealing with dead things, dead people, she knew Sherlock did that regularly. Healing people or hurting them, that was all familiar to John. But the immortal, the supernatural... That was something else entirely.

Going back over the encounter, John thought of something, and leaned forward to look at Sherlock’s face as much as she could. “It said something to you, and you said something back, before you pushed it away. What was that?”

Sherlock went tense, and John rubbed at her waist with one hand. After a moment, Sherlock sighed. “He was... saying something about someone named Anaksunamun. Presumably I reminded him of someone in some way. Regardless, he... he was trying to touch me, maybe kiss me, I don’t know. He got too close. So I...” Sherlock managed to crack a slight smile. “What I said back translates, essentially, to ‘Living men are disgusting enough, I certainly don’t have any interest in ones that are mostly decomposed.’ Don’t ask me how I had the presence of mind in the situation. Must have been the adrenaline.”

John laughed, delighted and surprised, and for that moment she felt safe again.

They rode all the way to outpost, and they stayed with Lestrade’s crew all the way back to Cairo, all piled into cars together. Somehow it was an unspoken agreement amongst all of them that the trip to Hamunaptra was properly over, and they were all going back to the city they’d started from. The ones among Lestrade’s crew that had the ability were probably planning to act like it had never happened.

John decided to put it all out of her mind til she’d gotten more settled. Since she didn’t have anywhere else for the moment, she went with Sherlock back to her place. They went in together, and it took John a long moment to realize that many of the things scattered around the sitting room had once belonged to her. Her eyes widened and she glanced toward Sherlock, who just looked disgusted.

“Mycroft,” she muttered. That explained it. It also seemed to serve as a reminder to Sherlock, and she muttered that she had to go and call her sister as she walked out the door.

Left there alone with their things and her thoughts, John started to process everything. If what Sherlock had said about the Hom-Dai was true, and the locusts were any sign, the ten plagues of Egypt had come back with the mummy. The mummy also had some kind of thing for Sherlock, and Sherlock was probably the only person who could figure out how to put it back to rest. With all those points making up her motivation, John started packing again.

Sherlock came back fairly quickly, and found John throwing things into suitcases.

“What the hell are you doing?”

John paused for a moment to look at her. “I’m packing. What does it look like? Help me.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a soldier, I thought you were meant to be brave! You’re going to just run away?”

The accusations of cowardice made John bristle, and she slammed the suitcase shut before turning to look Sherlock in the eye. “There’s being brave and then there’s being ridiculous. I’m not saying we should leave everything, but we talked about this! I tried to kill it, I can’t. I can’t kill it, you can’t kill it, the best thing for us to do is to get out of the bloody way until we know what we’re doing.”

Sherlock went over and opened the suitcase, pulling things out and tossing them across the room as she spoke, pieces of clothing flying towards the walls. “I brought it back! It’s obvious that I can find a way to put it back, I just need the right information, I need to do more thinking and more research, I can’t just go into hiding.”

“Of course you can! That’s the best way for you to do more thinking and research!”

“Well I’m not going to, then.” Sherlock tried to close the empty suitcase again, and John just started shoving other things in it. Putting her hand in the way, Sherlock glared at John, moving closer to stare right into her eyes. “If that legend is true, the plagues are coming and people including you and I are going to die unless something is done. Obviously no one else is going to be able to work it all out.”

It was obvious that Sherlock was going to hold out and that John wouldn’t get any packing done while she was there - and also that half of the reason for the plan, keeping Sherlock safe, would just be pointless if Sherlock refused to go. “Right. Fine. So you’ve got to work it all out, I don’t have much to contribute. I’m going to go and have a drink.” The will to fight Sherlock had gone out of her, it was just a waste of time and energy. She wanted to get away from the discussion, but her anger wasn’t fading yet.

Sherlock laughed, but it was harsh and humorless. “Because that’ll certainly help the state of things!”

“It’ll help the state of my head.” With that, John went out, slamming the door behind her, and started for the bar she’d always frequented before she’d been put in prison.

She’d hardly sat down at the bar when she looked beside her and found Mycroft there. John sighed and looked longingly at the shot she’d ordered. “What do you want?”

Mycroft pulled the glass towards herself, but didn’t drink it - she was just putting it out of John’s reach. She was starting to see why Sherlock wasn’t so fond of her sister.

“I don’t think you’re really considering leaving on your own, but I thought I’d come and make sure you didn’t. My sister will certainly need your assistance to not get herself killed while she puts right what she’s accidentally brought on. I’m prepared to pay you-“

John scoffed loudly, grabbed the shot, and tossed it back. She would have told Mycroft to piss off with the money, but something was off about the shot she’d gotten - there was a metallic taste at the back of her throat, one that was all too familiar. Everywhere in the bar, people were sputtering, and when John glanced at a nearby fountain and found it running red, she had a feeling she knew what the problem was.

“Water turned to blood. Shit.”

Without another look at Mycroft, John ran back towards Sherlock’s flat and ran into her just outside of it. She’d apparently gone to get research materials, because she had her arms full of books. John put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sherlock, I’ve been thinking. Do the plagues center on where the mummy is? Because if so-” John was cut off as a meteor fell from the sky and landed in the courtyard next to them. She pulled Sherlock closer to the wall, startled. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Sherlock rolled her eyes and yanked John towards her room again. “John, finish your sentence.”

“You’ve brought back the bloody biblical plagues! Excuse me if I’m a tiny bit scatter-brained at the moment!”

“The plagues are all my fault, then?”

John groaned. “I’m not doing this right now, fire just came out of the sky, would you just... Do you think the plagues are centered where the cursed creature is, because if so, then I think he’s here!”

When she finished her sentence, they had reached the door to Sherlock’s flat. They found it open just slightly. John pulled a gun from her shoulder holsters and they barged into the room to find the mummy rummaging through their things.

There was still nothing to prepare John for the sight of it. While some part of her wanted to insist that no one deserved this kind of existence or punishment, the way it moved and spoke, the way it had touched Sherlock in the tomb, it told her that this thing absolutely had some kind of sinister intent. She fired at him a few times, hoping it would knock him back like it had at the tomb, but it didn’t seem to do anything other than annoy him this time. He was stronger now - and honestly he looked it, now that John was paying attention. Some of his muscle and flesh seemed to have reformed. It was still far from complete, still obviously decayed and rotted, but he was regaining power the longer he was around.

He stalked towards John, and she kept shooting, but the bullets did absolutely nothing. He reached for her and lifted her off the ground, throwing her towards the bed where she slammed into the wall and slumped to the floor. She wasn’t knocked unconscious, but it certainly knocked the breath out of her. She laid there on the floor, struggling to get up, watching as the mummy moved towards Sherlock. Sherlock looked genuinely afraid.

He reached out and started to caress Sherlock’s face when suddenly a cat’s yowling sounded through the open door. He growled, his jaw unhinging to inhuman proportions before he turned to sand and swirled out of the room.

None of it seemed possible. John decided to stay on the ground since the threat seemed to have passed, and she was left just staring at the space where the mummy had been. Sherlock came over to check on her right away. She’d just placed a hand behind John’s head, presumably to check for any bumps, when Mycroft came in. The interruption caused her to startle and move back.

There was an awkward pause. Then, like she’d been reminded of something by her sister’s presence, Sherlock went over to her things and opened a suitcase. She pulled a false bottom from it and then took out the book she’d borrowed from Lestrade’s crew. “He was looking for this.” She was looking down at the book, turning it over in her hands. Then she looked at her sister. “Why would he need it? What do you know about all this, Mycroft?”

Mycroft gave both of them a wry smile. “Probably not that much more than you do - but enough that I believe we ought to all share. Come with me. I’ve sent word to Lestrade and his crew, what’s left of them. They’re going to meet us at an... undisclosed location where we’ll at least temporarily be safe.”

Nodding, John stood up and grabbed a few things - weapons, mostly. Sherlock gathered several of her things as well, and then they followed Mycroft out of the flat and to a car that took them to some sort of fort.

It took them some time to gather everyone once Lestrade’s crew arrived, but John just ended up waiting quietly in the main room until everyone else was there, too. Once they were all seated in a vague sort of circle shape, they waited for Mycroft to speak.

She stood in front of all of them and kept a casual tone through most of what she said, in spite of her ridiculous-sounding subject matter. “As most of you know, a creature has been brought back from the dead. You may have noticed the biblical plagues that have also resulted from his resurrection. The issue is that the creature was cursed. Records and sources that we’ve gone through relate that before being buried alive, the man’s name was Imhotep. The curse and all of this other horrible punishment was the result of him having an affair with the pharoh’s wife. It appears, based on what we know, that he’s attempting to bring her back to life. He needs the Book of the Dead for that,” At this point, Mycroft turned to look directly at Lestrade. “The book that your crew dug up and my sister... borrowed.” Mycroft paused, and for a moment, her cool and calm veneer faded and she looked genuinely concerned. “He also needs a human sacrifice.”

“You can’t mean...” John started, but Mycroft nodded grimly, glancing at Sherlock.

“He’s fixated on you, Sherlock. He’s planning to use you as some kind of vessel for the resurrection.”

One of the other workers on Lestrade’s team, the bloke that Sally was supposedly sleeping with, snorted. “Cold, dead, and literally heartless. You two would certainly make a pair.”

No one looked amused at the remark, and even Sally looked disgusted, turning away to look at the ground. John glanced at Sherlock, who looked almost frightened. She put a hand on her shoulder, and Sherlock made eye contact with her, looking glad to be shaken from her thoughts. 

“It’s not gonna happen. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. Right, Mycroft?”

John shifted her gaze from one sister to the other and Mycroft nodded at her. “Of course not. The longer this goes on, the more powerful he becomes, but as long as we act in a timely fashion there’s very little danger to anyone in this room.”

Finally thinking about everyone who was in the room, and more specifically who wasn’t, John turned to Lestrade. “What happened to Murray? The bloke that led you all to Hamunaptra?”

“We lost him there, sorry to say.”

Eyes narrowing, John looked toward Mycroft. “How did the mummy know where to find our room? Or how to trace us back? He may be gaining power but I seriously doubt he’s omniscient.”

“No, I’d say he’s not. I believe this train of investigation you’d like to pursue is a good thought. Go and find Mr. Murray. Take Lestrade if you like.”

“I’d rather take Sherlock.” She shot an apologetic glance at Lestrade, but he didn’t seem offended. Then she glanced back, and saw that Sherlock was looking at her.

She didn’t look upset, but she shook her head at John. “No, I’ll stay here. I have research to do. I’d rather focus.”

In spite of her worries about leaving Sherlock there while the mummy was after her, John nodded, and asked Lestrade to come with her.

They stopped at the door, though. “Is there anything we can do if we run into him? I noticed he doesn’t seem to like cats...”

“Cats were guardians of the underworld.” Sherlock responded almost immediately. “While he’s still not fully regenerated, he’ll be afraid of them. So... keep one around, I suppose, if you can.” She smiled weakly, John smiled back, and then she had to leave Sherlock there to go and hunt out Murray.

She knew that he’d probably be in a bar somewhere, hunkered down and trying to hide after he’d given the mummy information. It turned out she didn’t even have to think that far ahead, because she found him in her and Sherlock’s room when she went back to get something before they started looking properly.

He was there going through their things, and John immediately went over and slammed him against the wall.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said, and she punched him hard in the face, just hoping to break something.

“What the hell are you doing working with the fucking mummy?”

Bill looked at her, losing his humour, and shook his head. “What choice was there? I got left this time, in Hamunaptra. It was work for him or die. At least this way I’m alive.”

John dropped him abruptly, and kicked him in the side. “If you can call this living. I’d rather be dead. What is he doing?”

“I don’t know, why would he-” John stopped him, pulling him up again and punching him in the nose. “Right! Okay! He’s working on a ritual to bring his dead girlfriend back to life or something, it’s got to happen soon. In the next day or two, or he loses his window for a few months.”

It seemed like he had actually told her what he knew, and it still wasn’t very useful. Mostly she wanted to try and scare him out of helping Imhotep again. It was possible it wouldn’t do much, but she still couldn’t bring herself to kill him. Much as she’d threatened to do it in the past, it just wasn’t in her nature, not unless he was actively trying to kill her. He wasn’t, though. He was just a slimy git who’d work for whoever was most likely to help him survive.

Shaking her head at Lestrade, she started out. She noticed once she was outside that it had gotten very dark very quickly. When she looked up at the sky, she found that there was no sign of the moon or stars - just blackness. Another plague. “God. This is going far too quickly. We should get back to the others, come on.”

They made their way back to the fort as quickly as they could, and John found everything fairly in tact.  Mycroft told her that Sherlock had gone up to the room, though, and John decided to go and see how she was getting along with her research. She knocked only briefly before she opened the door, and when she did she found a man hovering over Sherlock. She froze, confused for a moment, and then became horrified when she realized it was the mummy, very nearly fully reformed.

“Sherlock!”

John saw the mummy get distracted for a moment, and Sherlock started to roll out from underneath him, but he grabbed her leg and she lost her balance and fell onto the floor, struggling to get herself up. He took the book where it was lying on the bed, and John went over, pulling Sherlock back from him.

She was afraid they were going to have to try and fight him again somehow, but he seemed to decide just getting the book was enough for now, and he was gone again in a swirl of sand and the scent of decay.

As soon as he was gone, Sherlock shoved her away. “How could you let him get the book? That was the best leverage we had!”

“I thought it was a little more important that I made sure he didn’t get you as well!”

Her hands going into her curls, Sherlock went to the bed and looked around wildly, then started pacing. “If I hadn’t fallen asleep reading it, or you hadn’t run off to chase down that idiot army mate of yours, this never would have happened! I can’t believe you’d-”

Reaching out, John gently took Sherlock’s hands from her hair, and then let go. “It’s not your fault. Okay? You can blame me if you like, but we’ve hardly slept, it’s no wonder you practically passed out. I should have been here, you’re right. Murray didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t know except that there’s apparently a time limit on the ritual and it’s got to be done either today or tomorrow. Soon. But I should have stayed here.”

Sherlock sighed, and seemed to lose her will to fight. “No. No, that’s ridiculous. You were chasing the one lead we had that wasn’t buried in thousand year old books, I can’t blame you.”

John smiled weakly and started to wonder if she should offer Sherlock a hug when she heard someone clearing their throat. She turned around, and found Lestrade at the door. “I heard all the noise. We lost the book, then?” John nodded at him. “Probably ought to go and tell Mycroft.”

She looked at Sherlock and they nodded at each other, then started downstairs.

As soon as they saw Mycroft, she just sighed at them. “Well. There goes the book, then.”

The expression on Sherlock’s face flashed with shame again for a moment before she seemed to regain her determination. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve done all the reading I needed to - you know as well as I do that we don’t need that book. We need the Book of Amun-Ra, which was supposed to be located where the black book was found.”

“So you’re saying the books were switched?” Mycroft asked. It came across a bit like mind reading, Mycroft figuring out what Sherlock was saying before anyone else could.

Sherlock nodded. “And the gold book is in the location scholars believed held the Book of the Dead, yes.”

“And where was that?” Lestrade asked, looking between them.

Sherlock held up a hand and closed her eyes. It was apparent to John that she was trying to find something in her mind, something that had been tucked away in a back corner for a long time. After a moment, she blinked, and blinked again. “Back at Hamunaptra, under the statue of Horus.”

“Incredible,” John said without meaning to. Still. Sherlock’s encyclopedic knowledge of all this never ceased to amaze.

Sherlock smiled, a small one just for John. “Take that British Museum scholars.” She grew serious again. “We’ll have to go back. Soon. We’ll need all the rest we can get tonight.”

“We’re supposed to sleep right now?” Lestrade asked.

“If you want to get any sleep at all.”

There were a few tense moments, all of them waiting for some kind of objection or further input, but when they realized that they really would just have to lay down and try for sleep and hope for the best, they all went their separate ways. All except John and Sherlock of course, who went upstairs together, no conversation necessary. They went back to the bedroom where Sherlock had been asleep earlier, and John stood by the bed with a concerned expression on her face.

“Are you sure you want to sleep here after Imhotep was in here earlier?”

Nodding, Sherlock started to pull back the sheets. “He won’t be back here tonight. If he is, at least you’ll actually be here this time.”

It didn’t hurt too much, mostly because John just knew Sherlock had a point. “Right.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

John sighed, and turned away, towards the wall. It was just the two of them in a quiet, vulnerable moment. They were both scared and aware that one or both of them could die in the attempts to stop the monster currently chasing them down.

“It’s alright. Let’s just get some sleep,” John said. She rummaged through a bag for her sleep clothes and went out to change. When she came back, Sherlock was already lying down.

It was an unspoken agreement that they’d be sharing the bed. After just sharing a tent for a night in Hamunaptra and being through so many near-death experiences together, it didn’t feel strange. For a bit, after John laid down, the bed was big enough that there was an awkward space between them. Then, slowly, they gravitated towards one another, first holding hands, then Sherlock slipping her arm over John’s waist, then Sherlock curled up against her, John’s arm around her, both of them clinging.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” John murmured quietly, feeling fiercely protective of the incredible woman she needed more time to know.

“Or you.” John looked down, surprised, and found Sherlock nearly nose to nose with her, looking at her intently. “Nothing can happen to either of us.”

John squeezed Sherlock’s hand and nodded. “Nothing’s gonna happen to either of us, then.”

They drifted off to sleep that way, twined tightly together. When John woke in the morning, though, Sherlock was gone. The bed beside her was cold, so she’d been up for a while. Still, for once John wasn’t really worried. She assumed Sherlock was in the washroom getting ready or reading downstairs somewhere near her sister. She checked the washroom first, taking her clothes and changing while she was there. She went downstairs, checking the main sitting area, then the library. Still nothing. Worry started to twinge at the back of her neck, tensing her shoulders. Finally she found Mycroft.

“Have you seen Sherlock this morning?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Unfortunately, instead of answering, Mycroft gave her a look, something that contained sadness and worry, and John just knew. She ran back upstairs to their bedroom, looking for any kind of evidence of how the mummy had gotten in or how he’d gotten to them - instead she found a note, under Sherlock’s pillow. Trying not to damage it in her worry and her anger, John lifted it closer to read it.

_Before you blame yourself, I left on purpose. On my own. I went to seek out Imhotep. Not because I wanted to, but because I knew that he’d keep coming until he found me, and if you kept putting yourself in the middle, you and Lestrade and everyone, you’d all end up dead. It’s me he wants, after all. Since I’m leaving, I’m fairly certain courtesy dictates I leave a note. So here it is. My note. I have a plan for stopping the ritual, but if that doesn’t work, I have confidence you all can stop him in my stead. Goodbye, John._

She had to resist the urge to rip up the note. Instead, she took it downstairs to Mycroft and shoved it at her. “Do you see what your idiot sister has decided to do? Tell me there’s a way we can stop this. There has to be.”

After quickly scanning the note, Mycroft handed it back to John and became exceedingly serious. “They’re going to have a head start. Camels and boats won’t do, we’ll need something much faster. I assume that the rest of Lestrade’s team won’t want to come and put themselves at risk - you go and tell Lestrade what’s happened. I’ll go and arrange our transportation.”

John nodded to agree, even though Mycroft’s cryptic remarks about ‘transportation’ worried her a little. Then she went and found Lestrade. She explained the situation - that Sherlock had gone after the mummy on her own and that they were going to have to go and stop it. Lestrade seemed concerned, but not completely surprised, and John wondered if this sort of behavior was typical for Sherlock. Trying to focus, she went back downstairs with Lestrade to find Mycroft.

The three of them took a car to an outpost in the desert, and there they met up with a woman named Anthea. She looked very much like the brunette woman who had helped run the raid on John’s favorite gambling den. It turned out she was a pilot, and they were going to be taking a plane. John had never been in a plane.

As it turned out, she wasn’t exactly sure she ever wanted to be in a plane again. It was a small and sputtery aircraft, one that dipped and sped as either it pleased or Anthea did, and John very nearly got sick in spite of her strong stomach. Just the flying was bad enough, but soon they found themselves surrounded by sandstorms. John wondered if they were natural, and then she swore she saw a face in one.

A giant version of a very familiar face, in fact. A wall of sand with the mummy’s face appeared in  front of them and came directly for the plane. John ducked into her seat as much as she could, but still there was sand in her teeth as the plane sputtered and dipped and fell.

She had braced herself, but still her neck and back ached as she climbed out of the part of the plane she’d ended up in. It was mostly in tact, really, just in two separate pieces. It wouldn’t fly again, but there wasn’t enough shrapnel to have hurt anyone. Noting that he seemed somewhat stuck, John helped Lestrade out of the wreckage. The pilot and Mycroft were already out and standing a reasonable distance away. Somehow, they barely looked ruffled. John was starting to get annoyed with how good Mycroft was at that.

They were still some way from Hamunaptra, but the mummy stopping his progress to try and crash them meant that he’d wasted time as well. They couldn’t be too far behind. The walk was grueling, but they reached the city soon enough and John paused to look around.

“Do we know where the statue of Horus is?” she asked, looking to Mycroft.

Mycroft nodded. “It’s this way. Anthea will stay out here to try and find some kind of transportation for when it’s all over. I’ll take the two of you in and help you find the statue.”

Nodding, John and Lestrade followed Mycroft down into the tombs and towards their destination. They were only a few rooms in when they encountered a caved-in doorway - which, of course, Mycroft said was the only way. John had her doubts, but she joined Lestrade in moving the rocks as quickly as she could.

As she stood behind the two of them, Mycroft directed them on which rocks to move first. “Start down there.” John did as she said, but as they kept working, she got more and more annoyed with Mycroft’s commentary. “You’ll really have to move faster, put some effort in,” she said, and John finally stopped, turning to stare at her, and she saw that Lestrade was doing the same. Mycroft at least had the conscience to look sheepish. “Right. Carry on.”

Fortunately, with that as their only real structural barrier, they got to the statue fairly quickly. John and Lestrade had just settled down at the front of it and started to dig when shuffling sounds echoed through the chamber, coming from behind them. When John turned, she saw a small army of decrepit mummies. They were missing large chunks of their bodies, but they lacked the fleshy appearance that was so disturbing in Imhotep. Instead they looked very much like they were made at least partly of stone. Still, they were incredibly disturbing - the way they moved was completely wrong, like every part of them was broken as they lumbered towards Lestrade, Mycroft, and herself.

“Every time I think it can’t get any more bloody terrifying,” John muttered to herself. She stood and told Lestrade to keep digging as she pulled out one of her guns and took a shot. Part of the mummy shattered, and it fell. Apparently these ones were susceptible to bullets. She distracted them and took out as many as she could as Lestrade finished uncovering the base.

He started to pry it open, then stopped. “The salt acid. We can’t be in front of it. Maybe if we pried it open from on top of the statue?”

They climbed up behind the statue, on top of the base, and rigged up a couple of crowbars so they could push from back there. The mummies kept mindlessly lumbering in their direction, but when the front came off of the statue, the pressurized acid burst out and left a few of the mummies crumbling into the sand. Lestrade had been right.

John slapped him on the back, a wordless appreciation for his remembering the trap. Then she ran around to the front, pulling the stone box from the statue and grasping for the book.

It was made entirely of gold, and it was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, John didn’t really have the full presence of mind to appreciate it at the moment. She grabbed it and stood up, noting that the mummies were still coming. Mycroft had been standing nearby, shooting at some of the mummies with a small gun of her own, but now that they had the book and all of their exits were blocked, she seemed to make a decision. She headed towards one exit and fired into the air, attracting most of the mummies’ attention. “I’ll pull them this way, you two get down there and stop the ritual. I’ll meet you outside.”

Leaving Mycroft to her own devices felt wrong - she could see the worry and guilt from her own expression reflected in Lestrade’s. Still, it was their only real option. John nodded, gave Mycroft a salute, and started down the path that Mycroft had pointed out, moving as quickly as she could.

They reached a large open chamber and finally John caught sight of Sherlock. She was stretched out on a table, her hands bound to the top of it. Imhotep, looking completely human, stood over her with a knife. John shot at him and it threw him off enough that he turned and brandished the knife at John instead of stabbing Sherlock. Lestrade took the book from under John’s arm and ran off. Imhotep went after him, and John ran down towards where Sherlock lay. Along the way, she grabbed a sword from a statue, and used it to knock the decrepit mummies right and left out of her path. It almost seemed like there were even more of them in this chamber than there had been in the last. She sliced through one, managed to reach the table and cut Sherlock’s bonds, then turned right back around and kept fighting. Once there was a break in the horde, Sherlock suddenly stood in front of her, grinning, and took the sword from her hands.

“What are you-”

“I told you I know how to fence. Take out your guns again. Leave the sword fighting to me.” John started to reply, but then saw another mummy behind Sherlock and pulled out her gun to shoot it right over Sherlock’s shoulder. After that, they turned and stood back to back for better protection as they fought.

Even as she fought off the mummies, John shouted at Sherlock. “I cannot believe you just ran off to give yourself up! That was unbelievably stupid - we nearly didn’t get here in time! I hope you know that as soon as we get out of here, I’m absolutely going to kill you.” Obviously she wouldn’t do anything of the sort. It was the greatest relief she’d ever known in her life to feel Sherlock’s thin form pressed to her back, to feel her heart beating through her shirt. It didn’t get rid of her anger, though, or her desire to tell Sherlock just how angry she was.

Still, she could hear the grin in Sherlock’s voice when she replied. “Don’t be so dramatic. I knew you’d turn up.”

Finally it seemed they had run out of stone mummies - and John had run out of bullets. Behind her, she heard an inhuman screech, and she turned to find a female mummy attacking Sherlock - Imhotep’s lover maybe? John started fighting the female mummy, trying to distract her as Lestrade came back through the room and shoved the book at Sherlock.

Sherlock read something off just as Imhotep came back into the room. John took Sherlock’s sword because it was the only weapon left in reach. She was figuring out her next move when Sherlock got knocked back by the female mummy. John turned just in time to see Lestrade grabbing another ceremonial knife to start trying to distract Imhotep again.

It was absolute chaos, so of course another group of mummies showed up. Apparently Sherlock’s broken off incantation had done something after all. John started on those mummies, and Lestrade was still working on Imhotep. She could see Sherlock out of the corner of her eye, defending herself from the female mummy with just the giant gold book.

John was dealing with three of the new mummies at once. These ones were skeletal instead of being made from stone, but they were harder to kill. One of them knocked her sword out of her hand, and she ran. Just as soon as she thought she’d end up getting killed, she heard Sherlock shout something else, and the new mummies stopped.

More Egyptian, and they regained motion. Sherlock was left to dodge out of their way as they marched straight for the female mummy and practically ripped her apart. Even though there wasn’t any real flesh or blood, it was gruesome to watch.

Imhotep shouted out her name. John remembered it now - Anaksunamun. For a moment, she felt sorry for him, and for her, and for the fact that even after all this time the two of them still couldn’t be together. Then Sherlock shouted that she’d gotten the key from his robes, and John saw he was headed after her. Instantly, her sympathy faded. She went for the mummy, trying to fight him, to distract him, just to buy Sherlock some time.

She lunged for him with the sword and actually managed to surprise him by lodging it in his chest. As she tried to pull it back out, he grabbed her by the throat and threw her towards the wall - fortunately the sword came with her. She could feel scratches from the sand and stone of the floor on her arms, her face bruising from where it had hit the ground after the initial impact of landing on her back. It was lucky she hadn’t broken anything.

After taking a moment to recover, she started to get up, and finally she heard Sherlock chanting.

There was a long quiet moment, and then sound of Imhotep gasping, but afterwards he just shook his head as if to clear it and continued stalking towards her, unencumbered.

“I thought you said it was gonna kill him!” John shouted as she drove the sword into his chest again. Only as she did, this time it felt different. He made a sound like the breath was driven from his chest. Like he was dying.

Sherlock was beside John, then, easing her hands off the sword. “He’s mortal,” she said quietly.

Imhotep stumbled back, slipping into the pool near the ritual area. As he sank into it, slowly, he started to return to his decayed state. Sherlock turned away, and so did John. Lestrade walked up beside them, and they all started to relax - then the ground started to rumble beneath their feet, and John could tell that the tombs were starting to collapse. Never a moment’s rest.

Grabbing Sherlock’s hand, John started to run, and they all went for the exit as quickly as they could without a single look back.

Aside from having to crawl through the sand a few times under closing doorways, the three of them made it out relatively unscathed, though John’s heart was pounding in her ears. When they got out of the city, they finally turned back to see it sinking down into the dunes.

While the three of them were left staring at the sand where Hamunaptra had once been, Mycroft and Anthea rode up beside them on camels, as polished and prim as ever. “We located some transportation. There shouldn’t be any trouble getting back to Cairo now.”

John had jumped at the sound of Mycroft’s voice, still on edge, still struggling to believe that it was finally all over. Sherlock placed a hand on her shoulder, and John turned to her, shaking her head.

She watched as Sherlock got a strange look in her eye and turned back to the other three. “Leave us a camel or two. I’d like an opportunity to look at some of the rubble. See what I can find. We left the book in there - we left everything. All of the potential knowledge.”

Though Mycroft had a strange look on her face as well, she nodded, and they said goodbye to Lestrade as he climbed onto his camel and rode off.

The two of them stood there together and watched as the other three receded towards the horizon. John turned to Sherlock. “Where do you want to start, then?” She started back towards the city, but Sherlock grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

“Didn’t you want to...?” John asked, confused.

“No. I just wanted them all to leave.”

“Why?”

“I never got my payback for the day at your jail cell.”

John blushed. “Are you-“

“Do you mind?”

“No, god no, of course I don’t mind, Sherlock, don’t be-”

Finally, John was cut off by the press of Sherlock’s lips against hers, and they stood there by the sunken city of Hamunaptra and kissed until the sun set.

They only took one camel back to Cairo, Sherlock practically in John’s lap, and once they were back in the city, they never quite got around to moving John’s things back out of Sherlock’s flat.


End file.
